ThePrisma.co.ukhttp://theprisma.co.uk
The Multicultural NewspaperMon, 25 Sep 2017 06:24:30 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.10Beyond the narcos (4): the disappearance of indigenous activismhttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/beyond-narcos-4-the-disappearance-of-indigenous-activism/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/beyond-narcos-4-the-disappearance-of-indigenous-activism/#respondSun, 24 Sep 2017 23:30:05 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/?p=174871The forced disappearance of activists belonging to the Tzeltal community in Chiapas shows how narco-narratives are used to hide cases of political repression during the War on Drugs

Marcella Via

The Tzeltal are an ancient Maya sub-group located in the highlands of Chiapas State. Traditionally, Tzeltal people are farmers.

They trade their craft products and surplus produce throughout the region through a system of periodic markets, which link them to the wider Mexican economic system. Tzeltal people are also dependent on working for wages to provide for their families. The case of forced disappearance of indigenous activists from the Tzeltal community of Chiapas is pivotal to understanding the dynamics of political repression taking place within the War on Drugs.

The case is essential to understand that the context of the War on Drugs is used by state authorities to legitimise the repression of state opponents and ethnic minorities that are extraneous to the narrative built around the conflict.

Almost ten years before the start of the war, members of indigenous communities in the south of the country were constructed as potential enemies by state authorities.

Consequently, indigenous people have increasingly become a target of violence both from the police and the military.

This trend has been reinforced during the War on Drugs as members of the Tzeltal community have been disappeared by the police force, reaching 150 cases in 2016, as explained by the “Inter Press Service” (IPS). Maximiliano Gordillo Martínez is one among many Tzeltal people who have been disappeared by the police. Gordillo Martínez disappeared after being accused of migrant trafficking from Central America.

Another case that is important to consider is that of Fidencio Gómez Sántiz, a political activist of the Frente Nacional de Lucha por el Socialismo (FNLS). Gómez Sántiz received several threats because of his engagement with campaigns against extrajudicial executions.

With regard to the disappearance of Gómez Sántiz, local newspapers reported the protests taking place in order to start investigations around the case, but have not provided information about the details of the disappearance itself. Additionally, while newspapers blame the group Los Petules for the ocurrence, the FNLS made a video making a direct link between the criminal organisation and local state authorities.

In relation to the disappearance of Gordillo Martínez, newspapers followed the position of the state authorities by stating that he was a Guatemalan migrant who got detained because of his immigration status.

However, a report from Daniela Pastrana from 2016 clarifies that the young man provided the police with documented evidence of his Mexican nationality before being detained.

While there isn’t a proper social movement related to the cases of forced disappearance across the Tzeltal community, members of the FNLS were already giving support to political activities related to the issue of forced disappearance in Mexico. They also raised awareness about the issue through social mobilisation.

The FNLS has been able to mobilise both through collective actions such as street occupation, and also by creating a dialogue with international institutions and national organisations such as Hasta Encontrarlos (Until they are found). Most importantly, the members of the organisation identify the violation of Human Rights as a clear sign of political repression by local state authorities, such as the governor of Chiapas, Velasco Coello, against their political opponents.

Therefore, the actions undertaken by the FNLS shed light on cases of political repression towards indigenous communities because of their political identity.

By raising awareness about their condition, the movement has been able to move away from the narrative built around the War on Drugs, as well as the condition of subordination affecting marginalised indigenous communities.

(Photos: Pixabay)

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/beyond-narcos-4-the-disappearance-of-indigenous-activism/feed/0This Monday: Defending rights defendershttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/this-monday-defending-rights-defenders/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/this-monday-defending-rights-defenders/#respondSun, 24 Sep 2017 23:29:50 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/?p=174858This is the name of an evening of talks around the theme of supporting human and environmental rights defenders in Central America.

Photo enca.org.uk

With guests from Peace Brigades International and the Black Fraternal Organisation of Honduras (Ofraneh), and with live music from the Pengenista samba-reggae drum band, the event is organized by the Environmental Network for Central America (ENCA). All aboard a boat over looking the London Eye.

In the northern triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) life for human rights, land rights and environmental rights defenders is dangerous.

Research by Global Witness reveals that since the 2009 military coup d’état in Honduras, 123 land and environmental activists have been murdered in that country with countless others threatened, attacked or imprisoned.

Photo enca.org.uk

The situation for rights defenders in El Salvador and Guatemala can hardly be described as any better than for Hondurans.

“Defending Rights Defenders” is a chance to explore, through short talks and case studies, ways in which people can better support rights defenders across Latin America.

This free event will feature short presentations from Martin Mowforth, author of “The violence of development”, Emily Spence of Peace Brigades International and Madeline Fernández, a leading member of the Organización Fraternal Negra de Honduras (Black Fraternal Organisation of Honduras, Ofraneh).

Madeline has faced criminalisation for human rights work which involves protecting and defending ancestral territories of the Garífuna people in Honduras. And the event will also be joined by Aurelia Martina Arzu Rochez, vice-coordinator and spiritual guide of Ofraneh.

Photo enca.org.uk

The talks, which will be chaired by Doug Specht from Voz, will be followed by a Q&A session and discussion, and later by music from the Pengenista samba-reggae drum band and the opportunity to continue discussions over a drink.

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/this-monday-defending-rights-defenders/feed/0Ayotzinapa 3 year anniversary: Stop Disappearances in Mexicohttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/ayotzinapa-3-year-anniversary-stop-disappearances-in-mexico/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/ayotzinapa-3-year-anniversary-stop-disappearances-in-mexico/#respondSun, 24 Sep 2017 23:28:58 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/?p=174859On 26 September 2014, 43 students from the rural teachers college of Ayotzinapa, in Southern Mexico were forcibly disappeared by police. To this day, their whereabouts is unknown.

According to official figures, there are more than 30,000 disappeared persons in Mexico and each day more and more persons are being disappeared by the state or with its complicity.
London Mexico Solidarity will stand in solidarity with the families and friends of the 43 as they continue to search tirelessly for the truth, for their loved ones and for justice.

The campaign say that “We will never forget and we will not stop until we know where the 43 are.” They add: “Come and join us as we stand in solidarity with the thousands of families looking for their disappeared loved ones.”

Photo Commons Wikimedia

And conitnue: “Let’s tell the Mexican government loud and clear that we demand the return alive of the disappeared, that we demand justice for them and for their relatives, that we won’t be silent while people are being disappeared”.

The organisers are asking people to bring signs, bring banners, “bring love and join us as we call for an end to impunity and we demand the return of the 43, for the return of all the disappeared persons and for an end to impunity.”

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/ayotzinapa-3-year-anniversary-stop-disappearances-in-mexico/feed/0The legacy of slavery (4): Impact on cultureshttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/the-legacy-of-slavery-4-impact-on-cultures/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/the-legacy-of-slavery-4-impact-on-cultures/#respondSun, 24 Sep 2017 23:27:20 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/?p=174924Status anxiety, fixed mindsets, fragmented connections and shame: Features of a culture that encourages schizophrenia. These four characteristics are all related, and are motivated by fear of what people may (or may not) be thinking about us.

Nigel Pocock

Movement for Justice and Reconciliation

It is increasingly evident that ‘status anxiety’ and self-perception as an ashamed ‘loser’ are very much a part of this.

When ‘brains make up their minds’ they then attach extremely negative meanings to life experience, and these meanings are highly damaging to health.

They need to be repealed. These meanings are culturally-derived. The ‘morality gap’ (in which people see their offences as less than those of their opponents) is part of this.

By labelling the imprisoned Africans as ‘naturally inferior’, and thereby ‘by nature’ losers, there was quite literally nothing such incarcerated people could do. They were nature’s pre-programmed non-achievers. But is human potential really so ‘fixed’?

Psychologists and neurologists now know that such ‘loser’ labelling is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The smallest of things can promote it, such as a tick on a form, indicating whether a person is Black, female, or old, leading to immediate drops in performance.

Similar experiments have been set up between children in India in relation to caste (merely telling children they belong to a superior caste leads to increased performance, vis-à-vis a ‘lower’ caste, who experience decreased performance), and with brown and blue-eyed children (telling them that eye colour means higher mental skills leads to the superior group performing well in relation to the supposedly inferior group―with the results being immediately reversed when the children are told the teacher got it the wrong way around).

Fixed mindsets

This destructive cycle is (or can become) a ‘fixed mindset’, and people with such an attitude tend to be insecure, defensive, aggressive, hypersensitive to criticism, and afraid of risks.

All of this is represented at a neurological level. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett argue that there is a mutually reinforcing circle between anxiety, depression, mindset and equality (or lack of it).

Shame

‘Shame’ is defined as a ‘painful emotion resulting from an awareness of having done something wrong or foolish’. Caribbean people believe that their ancestors did precisely this, resulting in a ‘fixed’ negative self-perception.

This leads to a ‘fixed mindset’, in which people become obsessed with their public image, their status. Thus, status anxiety, fixed mindsets, and shame, are deeply intertwined.

Broken family attachments

Connected to this is a principle characteristic of Caribbean slavery―the fragility of the family. Mothers could be separated from their children at any time, either by death, or being sold off. Attachment theory in psychology has shown that this break in the mother-child bond causes profound trauma for both mother and child, deeply affecting the child’s ongoing brain development.

The more the child then has instability and multiple carers (so typical of Caribbean slavery), the deeper the trauma. After a period of intense grief (marked by screaming and crying, looking for the absent mother, which may last for many weeks), the child enters quiet grief, which is misinterpreted as recovery.

The child then grows up incapable of stable familial relationships. The sooner the father leaves home, the sooner the daughter will start sexual adventures, thus perpetuating the unstable family.

Attachment trauma becomes not just a feature of a damaged brain, but is perpetuated by a social structure that greatly increases these traumatic brain changes.

This generates a loneliness and social isolation which establishes whether or not this will become a life-long trait. As John Cacioppo has shown in his excellent book, to deny or prevent the basic human need for companionship, is an absolute mental (and physical) health disaster. Such a social environment will exacerbate any fragility that is already there, triggering schizophrenic episodes.

Only about 25% of Jamaican children have a relatively stable home with married parents. But over 60% of 16 year olds have no parents with them. This is a key factor in mental health pathologies.

Loneliness and alienation lead to destructive physical and mental illnesses, growing out of the cumulative effects of the eleven criteria and their resultant poor self-care and coping skills. (Next week: to be continued)

(Fotos: Pixabay)

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/the-legacy-of-slavery-4-impact-on-cultures/feed/0Trump against ‘Dreamers’: mistaken, cruel and racisthttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/trump-against-dreamers-mistaken-cruel-and-racist/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/trump-against-dreamers-mistaken-cruel-and-racist/#respondSun, 24 Sep 2017 23:26:18 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/es/?p=174918The ever-controversial debate on immigration has re-emerged in the United States, this time in the face of a danger that threatens some seven hundred thousand undocumented young people who were brought to this country during their childhood.

Martha Andrés Román

Washington. On the 5th of September, President Donald Trump decided to eliminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General, was responsible for announcing the controversial measure during an address where he described the policy implemented by the Barack Obama administration (2009-2017) as unconstitutional.

Such a mechanism allows those who came when they were children to remain here and obtain work permits (renewable every two years if they meet certain requirements) and therefore protects the so-called “dreamers” from deportation.

Officials of the Department of Homeland Security specified that from that day they would not accept new requests and that current beneficiaries would be able to continue working until the expiration date of their authorization. Furthermore, those dreamers holding a permit from the DACA that expires before the 5th March 2018 will be able to apply for a renewal of two years until the 5th October.

The elimination of the program will be delayed for six months; therefore the Congress will have this period to look for an alternative to the situation of these people, who would otherwise be at risk of being deported.

Beneficiaries of the DACA

DACA has benefitted in total 787,580 undocumented young people, according to the latest data from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published last March.

In order to gain access to this initiative, the applicants must have been between 15 and 31 years-of-age in 2012, prove that they arrived to the United States when they were under the age of 16, have lived there continuously since 2007, be enrolled in secondary or tertiary studies and not have a criminal record. Although it did not signify a path towards citizenship, those accepted under this policy could obtain work authorization and, in many states, a driver’s licence, attend university or join the army without the threat of deportation.

The recipients arrived primarily from Mexico (more than 618,000 people), with a smaller percentage coming from Central and South American countries. Even though they can be found in all of the states of the country, the highest number reside in California, Texas and New York.

According to data collected in an online survey cited by the Los Angeles Times, the vast majority of those benefiting from DACA have studied and have jobs.

This study found that 91.4% of those were employed and 44.9% were enrolled in some kind of study, contradicting the image outlined by Trump, according to the newspaper.

Through a statement about his decision to put an end to DACA, the President said that the program helped to stimulate a massive surge of unaccompanied minors, including, in some cases, young people who would become members of violent gangs throughout our country, such as MS-13.

Criticism and protest

As was to be expected from such a controversial topic and the expressions of support for these young people from before the announcement, numerous voices have risen up against the decision, at the same time that many receivers of the mechanism, relatives and people of solidarity went out on the streets to protest.

“With DACA or without DACA, we are immigrants. We have fought a lot in the United States, and we are going to keep doing so in order to improve our lives”, stated Norberto López to Prensa Latina, a Mexican who at 23 years-of-age lives in California and arrived to this country when he was only one year old.

He was part of a group of hundreds of people who mobilised in front of the White House and chanted slogans such as “Aquí estamos y no nos vamos” (“Here we are and we’re not leaving”), “No somos unos, no somos cientos, somos millones, cuéntelos bien” (“We are not some, we are not hundreds, we are millions, count them well”), and “DACA Sí, Trump No” (“DACA Yes, Trump No”).

In the opinion of the Ecuadorian Luis Yumbla, who has lived in New York for more than two decades, it is necessary to defend this program because the beneficiaries are studious and hard-working people who help their families. “Our children”, he added, “have settled in to the United States culture, they love this country, they respect its values and they contribute to the local economy”.

“The decision about DACA tears families apart and says to the people who have worked hard for years to become United States citizens that they have to leave the country”, expressed Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, in a statement.

The Republican governors of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, and Nevada, Brian Sandoval, considered that Trump took a wrong turn, and recognised the contribution of the young people to their communities.

One day after the announcement, 11 states and the District of Columbia presented a lawsuit against the elimination of the initiative, led by the attorney generals of Washington, Bob Ferguson, New York, Eric Schneiderman, and Massachusetts, Maura Healey.

However, legal experts consider that an action of this sort will be very difficult and the only possible path for the ‘dreamers’ seems to be the capacity for consensus achieved by a Congress that has been too divided until now.

According to The Washington Post, it’s certainly possible that the legislation manages to, by a narrow margin, pass a measure that gives legal protection to these people.

The Post mentioned the differences in criteria on immigration between parties and also on the inner edge of the Republican ranks. Within the red force, they explain, are some figures that emphasize business and tend to favour a comprehensive migratory reform, but social conservatives tend to oppose any proposals that allow people without papers to stay legally.

*Chief Correspondent of PL in the United States

(Translated by Sarah Claman) – Photos: Pixabay

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/trump-against-dreamers-mistaken-cruel-and-racist/feed/0Making the transitory eternalhttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/making-the-transitory-eternal/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/making-the-transitory-eternal/#respondSun, 24 Sep 2017 23:25:07 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/?p=174831We all get depressed – if not now or yesterday then tomorrow or sometime after – and anyone who doesn’t has something wrong with them. Such people would benefit from professional advice because they are lacking something that is an essential part of being a human animal.

Photo: Pixabay

Sean sheehan

What matters at all costs is how deep the depression digs into our mind and body and how long it lasts.

The life of the writer Brian Dillon took a turn for the worse in the summer of 2015: in his forties, a long-lasting relationship was coming to an end and things fell apart; he could no longer write; suicide was a relatively painless option.

The book he was trying to write, “Essaysim”, did get completed and by being able to continue with its writing the suicidal path was not taken.

He came to realize that writing had always been his way of distracting himself from the urge to self-destruct.

Not everyone will share this way of trying to stave off the mental pain of existence but many will turn to and rely on reading as an essential means of coping with life. In this regard Brian Dillon is very much like the rest of us.

“Essaysim” is a book about reading the essays of others. A completed work on a larger scale, like a novel, has a wholeness that does not answer Dillon’’s needs. He warms to the form of a shorter piece of writing on a particular subject.

Brian Dillon – Photo by Chris Dixon

This is the essay – the word can also be used as a verb meaning ‘to try, attempt’ – and its etymology goes back to the twelfth century and a word meaning ‘a scale’, a form of measurement by weighing something.

The essay tries to weigh up its subject, express what is essential about it while accepting that it is only an attempt. It is, as Dillon puts it, “strange to itself”. Incompleteness is part of its nature, it can be fragmentary but this is the way it has to be because human existence is incomplete. We are not in control of everything and as Adorno – one of the essayists Dillon admires – expresses it:

But the desire of the essay is not to seek and filter the eternal out of the transitory;

it wants, rather, to make the transitory eternal.

The therapeutic value of reading “Essaysim” rests with its exploration of the consolation that comes from reading how others write about life.

The pleasure comes from being directed to a host of essayists whom one might not otherwise know about. The reading list at the end of the book will contain some familiar names but many will be new and worth seeking out.

“Essaysim” is far more than a tale of middle age melancholy. One of the writers quoted, E.M. Cioran, points to what is universal about the transitory nature of our lives:

Although I feel that my tragedy is the greatest in history – greater than the fall of empires – I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance. I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence.

“Essaysim” by Brian Dillon is published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/making-the-transitory-eternal/feed/0Latin America, at a decisive but uncertain timehttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/latin-america-at-a-decisive-but-uncertain-time/
Sun, 24 Sep 2017 23:24:53 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/?p=174926The offensive of the wealthy Creole classes in Latin America has not yielded the results they had hoped for. The ruling classes have achieved certain successes but their domination has in no way been established and instead, on the contrary, all that looms overhead are black clouds which threaten the power of those who, from colonisation to the present day, have ruled over a world of inequality, oppression and violence.

Juan Diego García

The ruling classes have never been up to the challenges of history and so despite the growth of economies and the transition from rural to widespread urban societies they are still a long way from having entered modernity.

The wealthy Creoles have been and remain a parasitic class, incapable of driving forward any project aimed at promoting nationhood and comfortably established as mere instruments for successive imperialist wealthy classes: first the Spanish, then the British and now the Americans.

Their economies are expendable appendages of a global capitalist system, and even in the more successful cases, they have not abandoned their status as mere suppliers of raw materials, of odd commodities of little added value and of a large contingent of human beings, destined to serve as cheap labour for the metropolitan economies.

Whilst the scope of so-called “developmentalism” was not great and import substitution did not establish a different link with the world market, the prevailing neoliberal model of the past decades, which was touted as the solution to all problems, has failed and is at the very root of the current global crisis which is assuming far more alarming proportions here in Latin America. Some cases stand out.

The deceitful ploy to remove Dilma Rousseff from Brazil’s government and her replacement with a recognised scoundrel like Temer has plunged the South American giant into one of its biggest ever crises – so great in fact that no one dare predict the possible outcome.

It seems that after accomplishing his mission (among whose main tasks are dismantling the social initiatives of the Workers’ Party (PT) governments, implementing a purely neoliberal style labour reform and fully subjecting the country to Washington’s directives) the wealthy classes will replace Temer with someone less unacceptable.

Their problem is to come up with a strategy to prevent the PT from winning the next elections and to stop Lula from reassuming public office (but this time with a leadership boasting even greater popularity than before).

No less devastating for the right is the case of Argentina whose government won the elections with a slim 1% margin: its centre-right government faces very active popular protest and has plunged the economy into deep crisis with even worse forecast.

Again, here, the whole process has only served to radicalise the population against the neoliberal model and the shameful subjection of the country to US foreign policy.

Mexico, a country that completes this trio of the three largest economies in the region, cannot fall any lower in the rankings regarding violence, corruption and the discrediting of its institutions. It is Washington’s closest ally, joined to it by means of a nefarious trade treaty.

As a country it is the target of Mr.Trump’s insults and taunts who one day threatens to build a wall (which Mexico would pay for) and undertakes to revise the free trade agreement between the countries so as to give even more benefits (than those already enjoyed) to US businessmen, the next day criminalises and humiliates the country’s millions of Mexican immigrants and from one day to the next directly intervenes in the internal affairs of the country (the DEA camp out there as if they owned the place).

Mexico is a time bomb because its popular sectors do not seem to be giving up on their efforts to purge the government of its considerable corrupt and criminal elements and to initiate the construction of a national and democratic project.

Things are not going any better for the right in Venezuala. It seems that the strategy of attrition and destabilization forged against the popular government of Maduro has failed.

The ‘Worker’ President and his team, unlike the vulgar caricature portrayed by the media, have shown more skill and handling of the situation than the violent, profoundly incapable, coup mounting right wing which has unsuccessfully tried everything suggested in the coup d’etat handbook. # Almost no one (except a couple of discredited – and not immune themselves from criminal liability – ex-presidents in the region) is in favour of direct military intervention which would be the last resort if all else failed.

As hopeless (though destructive) as local right-wing strategy are Trump’s measures and threats; at the moment Washington and the local right have no other choice but to sit down and talk and get at the negotiating table what they have not managed by other means.

If they resort to extreme measures such as broadening the economic embargo or direct armed intervention, they risk pushing the Bolivarian government to move ahead – yes …this time! – with building the socialist order it has always hoisted aloft as its emblem. This is what its grassroots – increasingly better organized and radicalised – demand. In Colombia, amid great difficulties, progress is being made with the implementation of reforms agreed with the insurgent forces. The process however reveals the weakness of the country’s institutions (the guerrillas deliver, the government barely ever does) confirming the enormous moral decay in all the institutions (immersed in cases of corruption and blamed as being largely responsible for the war – a war efforts are being made to get beyond).

Here, the ruling classes do not exactly stand out for their national sentiment, their commitment to progress or for keeping their promises. The current elections (to be held in 2018) indeed boast as one of their fundamental themes ensuring that the peace process ends on a happy note.

The agreements (especially agrarian reform and reform of the political system) as a result of their stipulations and scope do not go beyond modernising the country within a traditional social order.

But in the context of Colombian society, deeply unequal in economic terms and discriminatory and violent in social and political terms, these reforms constitute a total revolution.

The challenge for its ruling classes will be to demonstrate that they can remain faithful to the liberal ideals they boast about so proudly and which they are in practice such a long way away from.

The outcome of the social conflicts in each country hence suggests that the prospects are laden with uncertainty.

The system appears headed for great difficulties although it is maintaining some advantage due to the opposing forces’ relatively low level of organization.

Everything indicates however that the neoliberal model can only be prolonged by intensifying the current contradictions; and it is not an easy task either to return to some old-school form of Keynesianism or old developmentalism. The popular forces, on the other hand, have considerable opportunities as regards assuming a decisive role if they overcome their present limitations.

]]>Media and immigration in the United Kingdomhttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/media-and-immigration-in-the-united-kingdom/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/media-and-immigration-in-the-united-kingdom/#respondSun, 24 Sep 2017 23:23:50 +0000http://www.theprisma.co.uk/?p=145066Immigration is a complex issue, and it is the media which principally constructs the image of immigrants, and consolidates stereotypes.

Mónica del Pilar Uribe Marín

The media is responsible for the promotion of significant attitudes and feelings like acceptance, tolerance and interest in other cultures.

But the media is also responsible for promoting discrimination, racism, lack of solidarity, fear, rejection, and xenophobic attitudes.

That is why it is so important for those in the media to be knowledgeable about and have an awareness of what it means to be an immigrant. The media has greatly contributed to the creation of an anti-immigrant attitude.

On the one hand, we have the national press, the official press, the traditional press. This press has shown little solidarity with immigrants and a great deal of ignorance and insensitivity on the subject.

This is understandable, given that in the United Kingdom this type of press is generally owned by private companies or economic groups.

The image that is therefore formed and established by the press is that of an immigrant who comes to this country to deprive the locals of what they have, whilst disturbing the peace, the economy and British customs.

In other words, this branch of media says immigrants are not welcome and should leave the country, no matter what is going on in their own lives.

Of course, there are exceptions. Some newspapers, like The Observer or The Guardian, demonstrate an understanding of migrants’ situations.

They discuss the problems of immigration, as well as the achievements of immigrants. They have also lodged significant allegations, for example, about what goes on in detention centres and the effects of this government’s anti-immigrant policies.

Unfortunately, what happens in these particular papers does not occur across the board, nor does it happen as often as it should in such a multicultural country as this.

I say this because in order for the local population to understand the reality which immigrants experience, we have to talk about this reality every day, because this is the only way to counter the numerous and prsistent lies and myths about immigration.

Of course, it is not all about information-sharing and awareness-raising for local people alone.

We must also do the same for ourselves, the immigrants, because whether we’re talking about immigrants who are journalists, or migrants who aren’t journalists, but work for the Media, everyone has a moral and ethical obligation to speak out for immigrants.

It is not an easy task. On the one hand, we have to fight to maintain a high standard of professionalism in the work of journalists.On the other hand, we must know about the migration process and understand that reality: a reality where we have to protect our identity as a Latin American community, and where we struggle with daily discrimination and xenophobic attitudes.

I am not saying all journalists should become immigrant’s rights activists, but I do think that we have to show solidarity and have a thorough understanding of what happens in our immigrant community.

But we are starting off with some specific problems. For one thing, the Latin American media is only run by journalists in very few cases.

Furthermore, the universities offer no option to specialise in journalism and immigration (well, we have “Media and Diversity” at Westminster University).

This specialisation comes with ‘practice’ and unfortunately, therefore there are not Latin American media specialized on immigration. The Prisma is an exception. Newspapers

In addition, much of this media survives on the revenue generated by advertising, or other economic support, which, in one way or another, then influences the information that gets published.

There are several Latin American media, but they are all primarily concerned with reprinting Latin American news, or just commenting on topics that interest only to a minor segment of the population.

And we all know that talking about this community’s problems, denouncing the horrors of detention centres, going against governmental policies, and generally talking about the people who work as cleaners, who fight and are deported, does not generate advertising or government aid. It doesn’t generate a lot of friends and it doesn’t exactly open doors to the activities of the British elite … or, why not say it, of the Latin American elite.

This is not to say that the work which is being done is not valid, but it is insufficient,incomplete, and too often superficial.

It does not, therefore, help us to understand the reality of migration, nor does it create a real connection between British society and ours.

You have to go beyond promoting our artistic expressions and talents, our food and our languages and dialects.

It is not only about promoting our culture, it is also about defending it, knowing it and understanding it, based on real experiences and what it means to be an immigrant.

An immigrant who works as a cleaner can be proud of their culture, but won’t always have the opportunity to promote it, because she or he is more concerned about fitting into their new country, surviving, adapting, avoiding exploitation, and asserting their rights.

I think the Latin American media in the UK replicates the framework of the mass media in Latin American countries, and as such, the immigration issue is largely cast aside because, when all is said and done, it isn’t profitable.

Luckily, there is also the so-called alternative media, be it British or community-based. It is thanks to this kind of media that we are given information about the reality of the immigrant community. Except in very rare cases, I am talking about media created by community organizations or immigrant rights activists.

Sadly, the “local Latin American media” the voice of the immigrants cannot be heard unless it is telling a success story.

This is still a valid topic, but we also need to hear that immigrants contribute to the economy of this country through daily work like cleaning toilets and waiting at tables, we create small, traditional music groups, participate in political debates for immigrants, organize themselves to earn a wage to live on whilst avoiding exploitation, work to gain recognition of our Latin American identity, and work for those wrongly referred to as ‘illegal’.

This should not be that difficult.

Unfortunately, these same media outlets also act as islands. They are not united, but are motivated in pursuing their own interests, which are not always those of the immigrant community.

They do not unite between themselves, because we too discriminate and give a voice to a particular group of immigrants. We talk about one reality, not all realities. And I ascribe that to one issue: discrimination. (Part Two: Media and discrimination: When we classify immigrants )

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/media-and-immigration-in-the-united-kingdom/feed/0Latino identity: a case of multiple identities (Part 1)http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/identity-in-latin-america-a-case-of-multiple-identities/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/identity-in-latin-america-a-case-of-multiple-identities/#respondSun, 24 Sep 2017 23:22:46 +0000http://www.theprisma.co.uk/?p=135414In Latin America there is no single homogeneous reality: it is a region of contrasts, where different utopian visions and different everyday stories create a multitude of individual and collective identities.

But such clashes and divisions do not weaken local, cultural and national identities; on the contrary, they strengthen them, above all in an effort to resist the hegemonic identities offered by globalisation and inequality.

With its roots buried in the ancient past of indigenous civilisations, Latin American identity is the result of a long process starting back in colonial times, through independence and to today.

A search for the Latin American identity became a necessity for people from nations and towns in the South American continent to express their own voices and their own history.

In effect, Latin America is a conglomerate of local identities drawing nations together, bringing with them a diversity of cultures, ethnicities, traditions, beliefs and national identities.

It is the sum of narrative voices converging in a rich history narrated by people from the country, city, workers, intellectuals, artists, poets and migrants.

In Latin America there is no single homogeneous reality: it is a region of contrasts, where different utopian visions and different everyday stories create a multitude of individual and collective identities. It is a melting pot of cultures, roots and traditions.

European, African, indigenous, Arabic and Asian influences all come together in Latin America.

In spite of the population sharing such varied roots, there is unity at the heart of such diversity. The unity stems from the common roots nourished by pre-Colombian civilisations: a shared common history marked by struggles overcome in the colonial past and the subsequent collective fight for independence.

Latin American identity can be explained in terms of the duality that has formed the foundations of its dynamics and progression throughout history.

The name Latin America itself is a synthesis of the indigenous and the foreign, the meeting of native American and European influence.

Latin American identity is borne out of the contradictions and dialogue between the self and the other.

The geographical names of the American continent reflect different moments in history. To name something can be seen as an attempt to gain ownership of it.

Naming something gives it identity, it conceptualises it. The names ‘America’ and ‘Latin America’ have colonial origins, as do the labels ‘Indians’, ‘Spanish America’, ‘South America’ and ‘Hispanic America’: all were used to name the southern region of the American continent, either to distinguish it from the Saxon north or to highlight its ‘Latin’ or ‘Hispanic’ character.

Other names have been proposed for the region, such as ‘Indoamerica’ and ‘Abya Yala’.

The region’s labels were imposed on native people from outside, and there is now an attempt to lessen the Eurocentric character of the names, as a way of reclaiming an identity denied to native people who were labelled ‘Indians’.

As a result of the historical dialectic of colonialism and emancipation, however, and through a process of conceptual re appropriation, the names America and Latin America have come to mean something different to that which was originally intended.

In other words, they now label a new identity: that of the southern regions of the American continent.

The label ‘Latin America’ was first recorded in the mid-19th Century by two Latin Americans, José María Torres Caicedo and Francisco Bilbao, and was a response to prevailing French intellectual thought: that the continent was divided into two parts; one Saxon, and another ‘Latin’.

This division also slotted in well with French imperialist plans for the American continent at the time.

* Member of LARC (Latin American Recognition Campaign) and CLIC. **This article is part of a talk given by the author at the Manchester Cervantes Institute on 15th April 2010.

(Translated by Claudia Rennie) – Photos: Pixabay

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/identity-in-latin-america-a-case-of-multiple-identities/feed/0Lasers and drones: death from a distancehttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/lasers-and-drones-death-from-a-distance/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/lasers-and-drones-death-from-a-distance/#respondSun, 24 Sep 2017 23:20:43 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/?p=174860Obama sent the drones after a few terrorists and massacred whole families. Lasers have blinded the pilots of planes as they land. Amazon is planning to use drones to deliver parcels. In this age of DIY terror, governments are not doing enough to control potentially horrific attacks that could bring down an airliner over a city, and precipitate another misguided war like Iraq.

Graham Douglas

Between the two, lasers are probably the less dangerous terrorist weapon. They produce a powerful beam of light, which unlike a torch beam only spreads very gradually, so that at a height of 1000 metres it still covers less than the nose of an aircraft.

The effect is to light up the whole cabin and make it difficult at night for a pilot to see the instruments. In Brazil, this kind of vandalism is more common, a pilot told me that all he could do sometimes was grab a magazine to shield the crew. In the US, where penalties are tougher, the police will send up a helicopter to draw the interest of the offender and locate them, if they are still there, and heavy fines can be imposed.

A green laser aimed at the cockpit of a landing plane is most dangerous during the final moments before touchdown, when the pilots need to be able to see the runway clearly and the plane is not controlled by the automatic pilot.

But in order to threaten the safety of a plane in this way there must be a clear line of sight from a position on the ground and preferably directly ahead of the runway, something that may not be possible at most airports. And even then, there is no certainty of causing a crash.

The main danger from lasers continues to be damage to the pilot’s sight, and in Britain pilots are protesting the lack of action by the government.

Special coatings are being developed to apply to the windshields of planes, to filter out laser beams, while allowing visibility for safe flying. At present goggles can do this but pilots have enough to do without looking for goggles while landing their plane.

Death on wheels and honey for ISIS

In a bee colony, the drones are only there to mate with the queen. They have no sting, but they mate in mid-air, ejecting their sperm explosively and subsequently die.

Both lasers and drones have military applications, and both are the means of making the assassin invulnerable. Like other weapons, drones can be operated from a computer on another continent, and as one of these operators was quoted recently – “You don’t think any more about it than you would squashing a fly”. A click of a friendly little mouse in Nevada can vaporise a vehicle and its occupants, or bomb a wedding in Yemen.

Back in the 70’s, Peruvian Shining Path terrorists used to strap explosives to animals: donkeys, dogs, even a duck apparently, which were then sent into bars or markets and detonated remotely. This week, an article in the London Evening Standard talked about remotely controlled delivery drones being trialled in the London Borough of Greenwich which run along the pavements, dodging pedestrians with their sensors. And Amazon is well advanced with trials of aerial drones for delivering goods.

An aerial drone might weigh 20 kilos and be capable of flying to a height of several thousand feet, as pilots have testified, and there have been several incidents of air traffic being diverted from landing at airports until a rogue drone left the area.

The front turbine blades in a jet engine are incredibly strong – it is often said that a blade can support the weight of three London buses without snapping. But this is not a cause for complacency, when a woman at Hong Kong airport was recently seen throwing coins into an engine ‘for luck’, the flight was grounded while the engine was opened up and inspected.

A metal drone being sucked into an engine at high speed would almost certainly cause a fire or an explosion in the engine, even without the drone carrying explosives itself, and the sudden loss of power during landing or take-off could be enough to cause a plane flying over a city to crash with horrendous loss of life in the plane and on the ground.

Recently concerns have been raised that ISIS is planning attacks in Europe using unmanned vehicles, as they have already been doing in Syria and Iraq. But drones do not require explosives in order to cause devastating loss of life and huge propaganda victories for the terrorists. They are the ultimate extension of the trend towards DIY terrorism, using easily obtainable or home-made devices – and we are not prepared.

The lorry that was used to kill over 80 people in Nice, initiated a trend in Europe. Drones requires little skill, can be bought legally, and are being introduced as commercial delivery vehicles.

Nor do the users require the support and funding of a terrorist organization. But the possible use of drones against passenger aircraft represents a huge multiplier effect.

Whereas the size of a bomb used on the ground determines the damage it can do, a drone can bring down an airliner without any explosives at all.

In the UK, a drone is not allowed to be flown above 400 ft., must always be in sight of its controller, and stay away from congested areas. But there are no effective means of controlling those who don’t comply: in other words, legally, we rely on people being sensible and nice to each other. The owner of the drone which flew across the runway at Heathrow in 2014 has never been identified. Similarly, obligatory registration of owners is unlikely to be effective, if for no other reason than that there are already so many unregistered drones in circulation.

What can be done? What could happen?

Technically there is geo-fencing, a software solution which prevents a drone from being flown into aircraft flight paths, except that it is not mandatory for manufacturers to fit, and sooner or later, a terrorist programmer will not be deterred from finding a way to disable the software.

He said that in order to be effective, geo-fencing has to be mandatory for manufacturers, and must be implemented in such a way that the software requires weekly updates or the drone will cease to fly.

He draws an important distinction between the control of drones and air-traffic control. While the latter can work as a top-down system, there are far too many non-commercial drone operators to make this possible. Instead manufacturers must get together and institute a system.

And the system, he emphasized, must be fully automated to deal with the large number of privately-owned drones.

It should include the means to electronically interfere with and bring down drones that enter aircraft flight paths, using radio pulse generators or even armed drones. These effective countermeasures already exist, he told me, and are rapidly entering the market as we see here. In fact, they are in use to protect G7 meetings.

There is intelligence that jihadis are advocating drones, and production lines for gliders carrying explosives to bring down planes, so it seems that once again we are waiting for a catastrophe to happen before action is taken. 9/11 led to the disastrous invasion of Iraq, so we have to fear the geo-political consequences of an attack of this magnitude, given the kind of politicians who control the world’s biggest militaries, and their greedy desires to control oil and gas-producing countries.

(Photos: Pixabay)

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/lasers-and-drones-death-from-a-distance/feed/0Oscar Fernández Morera, line and paintinghttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/oscar-fernandez-morera-line-and-painting/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/oscar-fernandez-morera-line-and-painting/#respondSun, 24 Sep 2017 23:19:45 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/?p=174935He was a drawer, illustrator, portrait painter, and dedicated observer of the nature and architectural variety of his city. He was capable of bringing together a work rich in nuance and rigour, almost academic in nature, with other exponents of the Cuban visual arts scene that were his contemporaries.

Elizabeth Borrero

Sancti Spíritus, Cuba. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the dabs and strokes of Oscar Fernández Morera (1880-1946) identify the pictorial style of Sancti Spíritus, the fourth Cuban village founded more than 500 years ago by Spanish colonizers.

This painter, recognised as the pioneer in the city, is, on top of this, identified as the favourite son of the visual arts and the first to colour the Yayabo, the river that has given life to this city (capital of the province of the same name) since it was established on its bank at the beginning of the 16th Century.

His contribution to espirituana arts has influenced generations of local creators who recognise ideas in his paintings that were ground breaking at the time, without considering him avant-garde.

On the contrary, his creative line stayed within the classical impressionist ambit and avoided the new trends that were arriving from Europe at the time. Journalist, Pastor Guzmán explains this in “Fernández Morera sigue moviendo pinceles” (Fernández Morera keeps moving brushes), an article published in the local press.

According to this author, the work is surprising considering his self-taught education and would later give place to more than a thousand works and a way of painting that for more than 130 years after his birth continues to influence those who today express art with colours.

His creations move between the extremes: from still lifes, to rural and urban landscapes, to illustrations for books, newspapers and theatrical sets for which he used techniques like crayon, oil, pastel, watercolour and ink. Also known as a leading copyist of works by famous painters, Fernández Morera practised all of the genres that were in fashion at the time. His work considers still lifes, portraits and urban landscapes where the capture of tropical light is emphasized.

According to art-historian, Luis Rey, he is an artist that without completely liberating the strokes and fragmenting the dabs in search of luminous effects in the impressionist style, was able to grasp the pictorial qualities of light.

In a time when romantic influences in Cuban painting were still felt, with their dim light of dusk, charged with melancholy, this creator managed to capture the luminous transparency of contrast, explains Rey in his book “Del entorno al signo” (Environment to symbol).

“In his seascapes, still lifes and all of his portraits, there are propositions that are bold for his time due to the colours and painting technique” claimed scholar Esbértido Rosendi to Prensa Latina.

Manuel Echevarría, also a journalist, emphasizes the painter’s unique vision of the city through his artistic journey, where he discovers unexpected details of his land. This occurs in pieces such as High Church from Plácido, Bridge over the Yayabo or Courtyard of the Colonial Museum.

His works are debated with pleasure among an audience interested in picturesqueness and the search for formal values that, though far away in time and space, he knew how to understand and incorporate into much of his work, wrote this expert.

The gallery

Located in the centre of the city of Sancti Spíritus, about 360 kilometres to the east of Habana, the mansion where the painter originally lived houses one of the most important collections of the pictorial art sprung forth in the heart of these lands.

At the mansion is a permanent exposition of a collection of more than 200 works by Fernández Morera with portraits, urban landscapes of the city, still life sketches and drawings restored on more than one occasion in order to preserve them.

Today, the art gallery of the city that carries the name of the artist, also forms a referential cultural centre which carries out expositions, displays, competitions and Los Salones de la Ciudad (The Venues of the City), an event designated to confronting and promoting the work of the visual artists of the province.

The manor house where Fernández Morera spent his childhood houses pieces that are key in understanding the value of this figure as well as inspiring the creation of the generations of disciples that followed him. (PL)

(Translated by Sarah Claman)

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/25/oscar-fernandez-morera-line-and-painting/feed/0A deadly taboo: domestic violence in LGBTQI relationshipshttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/18/a-deadly-taboo-domestic-violence-in-lgbtqi-relationships/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/18/a-deadly-taboo-domestic-violence-in-lgbtqi-relationships/#respondSun, 17 Sep 2017 23:30:27 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/?p=174722This type of violence is more common than people realise: one in three LGBT people are or have been victims of violence perpetrated by their partner or ex-partner – a percentage that approaches that of women in heterosexual relationships.

Victoria Gutiérrez*

Jael Garcia*

Domestic violence and intra-family violence within couples affect every segment of the population.

Abuse is not limited to heterosexual couples. Lesbian and transsexual women are victimised in exactly the same way as women in heterosexual relationships.

The main difference is that the taboos and prejudice created in our communities in response to homosexual relationships and other unconventional types of relationship are killing people who experience violence perpetrated by their partner.

However, the number of reported cases is substantially lower than the number of cases reported by women who are or have been in a heterosexual relationship.

Clearly, there are multiple reasons why a victim of domestic violence might not report the incident.

These include the individual not wishing to reveal their sexual orientation or the type of relationship they are in, or the fear of the implications this may have within their family or social circles.

There are various similarities between domestic violence in a heterosexual couple and in a same-sex couple: these include emotional, physical, sexual and financial violence, and exercising control over friendships.

However, domestic violence within same-sex couples also has several unique characteristics.

In London, there are a number of organisations that aim to support Latin American women. One of these is Latin American Women’s Aid (Lawa), where we have experience of supporting women in our community who have experienced domestic violence at the hands of their same-sex partners. And we have found that filing a complaint and deciding to leave an abusive relationship represent huge challenges for women in the LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer and intersex) community.

The motivations pushing LGBTQI women to keep their silence, hide their needs and perpetuate the myth that domestic violence does not exist in their relationships may be attributed to several factors.

One of these is forced outing, which refers to a survivor’s partner constantly threatening to expose them to their family, friends or colleagues, or in other spaces in which they interact. This constant threat of exposure is a useful mechanism to exercise control over the survivor and deny them any form of self-determination.

There is also the fact that domestic violence receives very little recognition within the LGBTQI community.

Very scant information exists regarding domestic violence in same-sex relationships. A lot of the information available focuses on the experiences of women in heterosexual relationships, leading to a generalised belief that domestic violence only occurs in heterosexual relationships.

This excess of information on heterosexual relationships results in the experiences of the LGBTQI community becoming invisible, and in the lives of victims and survivors of domestic violence not being treated with the respect they deserve.

Another factor is the fear of seeking help that is highly prevalent among survivors, because they are scared of reaction or rejection by third parties such as family members, friends and the police, among others.

Most are victims of homophobia (hatred of homosexuals), transphobia (hatred or transgender or transsexual people) or biphobia (hatred of bisexuals). They also prefer to stay silent because they are frightened of being rejected by those outside their close social circles.

Otherwise, some may want to tell their story and seek help, but the services available to them are unaware of the characteristics and manifestation of domestic violence in certain communities, particularly the LGBTQI community. This results in the survivor not receiving a service that meets their needs.

In our experience working with women in the LGBTQI community, we have realised the importance of supporting them and providing them with a service suited to their needs and circumstances. We believe that language should not prevent people from seeking help. That’s why LAWA offers services and advice in Spanish and Portuguese so that are able to they feel safe and tell their story in their mother tongue.

We have created a safe, confidential space where no woman is judged on the basis of her sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or immigration, educational or employment status.

Countless obstacles have been overcome and significant progress has been made by and for the LGBTQI community. However, cultural and sexual prejudice and the lack of information on the topic have turned survivors of domestic violence into unknown victims and the rest of society into the silent witnesses of a deadly taboo.

That’s why we believe that the more Latin American women in the LGBTQI community break their silence regarding their experience of domestic violence, the greater the role they will have in their own integration with the community, and the more they will recognise their power and opportunities for change in their journey towards self-determination, showing that the deadly taboo can be broken.

LAWA, which will celebrate its 30 birthday on 6 October, is an organisation led by Latin American women that works with other societal actors to end gender-based violence. Within the latter category, domestic violence is one of the major challenges facing our Latin American, Afro-descendant and minority ethnic community.

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/18/a-deadly-taboo-domestic-violence-in-lgbtqi-relationships/feed/0Haiti’s capital, Santiagohttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/18/haitis-capital-santiago/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/18/haitis-capital-santiago/#respondSun, 17 Sep 2017 23:29:24 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/?p=174736The explosive influx of Haitians into Chile – more than forty thousand in just seven months – dominates the conversations in a country which despite its overwhelming miscegenation was never home to immigration

Haitian immigrant selling Super 8s on the streets of Santiago.

Text and photos by Pablo Sapag M.

For three decades Super 8 has been Chile’s most popular snack. The chocolate covered wafer goes hand in hand with school breaks, waiting times or any occasion you care to mention.

The snack is touted in the streets, the subway and micros or urban buses – by thousands of unregulated street vendors shouting “Super 8 two hundred pesos, three for five hundred!” though the truth is the product is so well established multi-offers are not necessary.

Perhaps that is why many of the thousands of Haitians who in only two years have made their presence visible on the streets of the main Chilean cities and especially its capital Santiago are already competing with the Chilean vendors who have been at it their whole lives.

At the traffic lights in this city of more than seven million inhabitants where 40% of the country’s population is concentrated, the Haitians are making a living by simply displaying the product. The difficulty hence of moving from the Haitian creole to the convoluted Chilean vernacular, so distant in terms of its vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation from the Spanish spoken in the Dominican Republic – which together with the United States and France is a preferred place for Haitian emigration – is avoided.

Haitian passing opposite the premises of the traditional café Haiti in Santiago.

The explosive influx of Haitians into Chile – more than forty thousand in just seven months – dominates the conversations in a country which despite its overwhelming miscegenation was never home to immigration.

An initial mix of Mapuche Indians with the few essentially military colonial Spaniards was added to in the 19th century by small contingents of Europeans and Arabs, though never in the proportion they did in Argentina, Brazil, or Uruguay.

Neither were there, in Chile, hardly any blacks, since an abundance of Indians was sufficient for the agricultural and mining encomiendas (repressive colonial tax regimes) of the Spaniards. That is why the presence of the Haitians stands out so much.

Despite this however to date there have been no major outbreaks of xenophobia or racism in this country where, on the other hand, there has always been a clear relationship between race and economic, political and social status.

Haitian immigrants walking down a popular avenue in Santiago.

Experts believe that the unexpected speed of this development explains why so far anti-Haitian demonstrations are only visible, although increasingly frequent and hostile, on social networks and in private conversation, where they are blamed for the virulent increase in AIDS cases – Chile is where there has been the greatest increase of this in Latin America over the last six years – or for the reappearance of tuberculosis and leprosy.

Business interests which seek to lower the cost of labour in one of the most unequal countries in Latin America are another reason. The neoliberal model imposed on the country makes economic consideration a priority in any analysis, in this case, to the benefit of Haitians.

They have also found obsolete Chilean immigration law to their advantage. Despite the fact that over the last fifteen years some tens of thousands of Peruvians, Colombians and Venezuelans arrived in the country, the staggered nature of their arrival and their ability to racially, linguistically and culturally emulate the majority of Chilean mestizos did not demand legal changes.

A Haitian man in a street in Santiago.

Now, with the arrival of Haitians, this is indeed being considered. Most enter as tourists with the clear intention of working.

To date moving from one job to another within the country has been easy, so many Haitians have already become legally registered. A legal loophole and a lack of immigration strategy that led the National Head of Foreign Nationals Rodrigo Sandoval to tender his resignation to President Bachelet.

That crisis showed that the arrival of Haitians was starting to make it onto the agenda, with the danger that this represents in a year in which Chileans must elect a new president and parliament in December.

Politicians may be tempted to use the Haitian issue in one way or another, thus breaking with a consensus to welcome them: which is in the interests of business – the real powerbase in Chile – and has been based on elements very peculiar to this bilateral relationship.

In 2004, Chile was the first Latin American country to send troops to Haiti when chaos – which Chilean troops helped contain – followed the overthrow of President Aristide.

Many Haitian immigrants work in the cleaning sector.

With former Chilean dictator Pinochet still alive, the humanitarian and peacekeeping mission served to reconcile the Armed Forces with their compatriots. The mission’s importance was doubled in the wake of the earthquake of 12 January 2010 that killed tens of thousands of Haitians.

Only a month and a half later another earthquake shook Chile and despite the distance and the disparity in consequences the earthborn catastrophes cemented a sympathetic relationship between the countries which was also facilitated by the popularity of Jean Beausejour, a football player for the Chilean national team and twice American champion whose father is Haitian and mother is Mapuche.

This is the situation thus far at least until the Haitian issue goes beyond a mere Super 8.

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/18/haitis-capital-santiago/feed/0Talks between ELN and Colombian government: good faith and goodwillhttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/18/talks-between-the-eln-and-the-colombian-government-good-faith-and-goodwill/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/18/talks-between-the-eln-and-the-colombian-government-good-faith-and-goodwill/#respondSun, 17 Sep 2017 23:28:56 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/?p=174706The temporary bilateral ceasefire agreed between the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN) and the Colombian government paves the way for a deal to bring an end to armed conflict and reach a lasting peace in the South American country.

Photo Wikipedia

Sinay Céspedes Moreno

The announcement was made on 4 September at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the two sides, who since February last year have been holding talks on the outskirts of the Ecuadorian capital to put an end to a 50-year long armed conflict in Colombia that has also affected neighbouring countries such as Ecuador.

“We did it! Thank you to everyone who resolutely supported the efforts to reach this BilateralCeasefire”, the guerrilla group wrote on its Twitter account, shortly after reaching an agreement with the government led by President Juan Manuel Santos.

‘With the intention of undertaking humanitarian action, the National Government and the National Liberation Army have agreed to enact a temporary bilateral ceasefire to de-escalate the armed conflict’, they later announced in a joint statement.

However, the truce doesn’t just mean the laying down of arms, it will also improve the humanitarian situation of the civilian population at large – the group that has been most affected by fighting that has left 320,000 dead, 46,000 missing and nearly seven million displaced. The ceasefire will come into effect on 1 October and last until 9 January 2018.

In order to guarantee that both sides comply with the ceasefire agreement, they decided to establish a mechanism consisting of the Colombian government, the National Liberation Army, the United Nations, and the Catholic Church, that will work with the double aim of preventing and reporting any possible incident.

The Quito Agreement, signed at the end of the third round of talks, will see an extension to the round of negotiations in order to fine tune logistical aspects of the ceasefire agreement.

For Juan Camilo Restrepo, head of the government’s negotiating team, ‘[the agreement] is a huge first step towards starting to civilise the war in Colombia’. At his side, the ELN’s lead negotiator, Pablo Beltrán, said that the bilateral and temporary decision is a clear sign of how things can change in Colombia.

“(…) this agreement and this episode demonstrate that it is possible for us to change, and that relief for the people, who are directly hit by the effects of the conflict, is dependent on us changing. The commitments we have taken on are in service of this”, he stated. “Upon signing the pact, both sides made commitments that they must honour”

During the ceasefire, the ELN will have to put a stop to kidnappings, stop recruiting child soldiers, and stop planting explosives and anti-personnel mines, as stated by the negotiating chiefs in a press conference.

Photo Wikimedia Commons

Meanwhile, the Colombian government will oversee a humanitarian programme for Colombia’s prison population, with improvements in health and treatment of the prison population, a more humane policy regarding where they are imprisoned, and improved security inside prison compounds themselves, among other measures.

Once the ceasefire comes into effect, a concurrent process of dialogue and consultation with the general public will begin, starting with public hearings that will take place at the start of the fourth round of negotiations, planned for 23 October, also due to take place in the Ecuadorian capital.

Since 7 February last year, when the public phase of the peace negotiations between the ELN and the Santos administration opened, Ecuador has hosted the talks, which have received the backing of Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Norway, and Chile acting as guarantor countries. The deal signed after only seven months of talks represents, in the eyes of many people, a major step on the path towards peace, and as such the displays of approval and support made in public on social media are numerous.

“A round of applause for both the ELN and the government for the #BilateralCeasefire agreement reached in Quito. May nobody doubt the @ELN_Paz’s desire for peace’, Iván Márquez, member of the national leadership of the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force (Fuerza Alternative Revolucionaria del Común, FARC), the political party founded after the dissolution of Colombia’s largest guerrilla force, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo, FARC-EP).

The former politician and chief negotiator for the Peace Agreement signed in Havana, Cuba, between FARC-EP and the Juan Manuel Santos administration, Humberto de La Calle, also joined in by offering his congratulations.

“The announcement of a bilateral ceasefire with the ELN is a gesture of hope that I hope is consolidated”, he said on Twitter.

From Quito, the Ecuadorian national authorities also hailed the determination of both sides, among them the Secretary General of the governing Movimiento Alianza PAIS, Gabriela Rivadeneira, who wrote: ‘We warmly welcome the ##CeseAlFuegoBilateral agreed in Quito. What has been achieved by @ELN_Paz and @EquipoPazGob is a strong step towards peace’. “Dialogue as a peace mechanism. Let’s celebrate the announcement of the #CeseAlFuegoBilateral between @ELN_Paz and @EquipoPazGob. A great step forward for the region!”, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, María Fernanda Espinosa, said, who had accompanied the delegations during the reading of the Agreement. (PL)

(Translated by Matthew Rose – Email: mattyrose1995@gmail.com)

]]>http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/18/talks-between-the-eln-and-the-colombian-government-good-faith-and-goodwill/feed/0The legacy of slavery: (3): Family, social equality and mental healthhttp://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/18/the-legacy-of-slavery-3-family-social-equality-and-mental-health/
http://theprisma.co.uk/2017/09/18/the-legacy-of-slavery-3-family-social-equality-and-mental-health/#respondSun, 17 Sep 2017 23:27:38 +0000http://theprisma.co.uk/?p=174770Family dysfunction was an important feature of slavery in the Caribbean, and it seems very likely that this is one of the ‘downstream’ effects of the past history of people from the Caribbean.

Nigel Pocock

Movement for Justice and Reconciliation

Fearon and Morgan make the helpful suggestion that “Studying the potential protective factors (such as strong social and family networks) may provide some clues that may help to clarify why some groups appear to be relatively more protected from psychosis than others.”

This point may indeed prove the key variable in mental health pathologies. It is not at present politically correct to admit that different family styles yield very different health outcomes.

This is an unfortunate blockage to research, as it prevents the formulating of social policies that might address these issues. But then, it is said that politicians ‘grease the wheels when they squeak’, and they can only do this if they are voted into power.

Writing in The Times, Mary Anne Siegart draws attention to a contradiction common to politically-correct relativism and decidophobia: “We heard it again from Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, this week. In a big speech on families, he admitted that ‘marriage represents the pinnacle of a strong relationship’, but then went straight on to say: ‘But that does not mean that all children from married couples fare well, nor that every kind of alternative family structure is irretrievably doomed to fail. Our family policy must be bias-free.’ (…) Later in his speech, Johnson produced this horrifying statistic: “Children of lone parents are 70% more prone to develop psychological illnesses in later life.”

Politicians, therefore, must pander to popular demand, and special interest groups representing every conceivable family style are part of the potential market for votes.

If bestiality were demanded in sufficient numbers, all the parties would call for its legal recognition.

It also suggests that one hypothesis of this research should perhaps be: “That there is a positive correlation between strong and stable families and reduction in mental illnesses, within Caribbean groups”.

Is a ‘Me, Me, Me’ attitude correlated to increasing mental illness? We suspect that it is. However, the roots of this relativism and introspection may not be the same, although they may act on each other to increase the degree of health pathology.

While we have heeded the important findings made in south London, very similar findings come from a study of African-Americans. Michaeline Bresnahan and her colleagues also draw similar conclusions as regards possible causal pathways, adding that SES (social and economic status) is an important part of this equation, as well as family structure.

In this US birth cohort, African-American mothers were 3-fold more likely than whites to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, and that SES appears to be partly or wholly responsible for this difference.

Since Bresnahan et al measured family SES at birth, it is likely that a longitudinal study might reveal a cumulative effect if measured later in adolescence. Can the agreement of UK studies with US studies be mere coincidence? This seems unlikely.

The common features of both are racism, relative deprivation, and a common past history rooted in slavery. Part of this is family dysfunction, absent fathering, broken attachment of the mother and child, and more.

Protective factors are clearly the reverse of these: the stable, loving family. But stable loving families don’t just happen.

There has to be a social push-pull rooted in a value system that is not simply based on selfishness and ‘Me, Me, Me’, as psychologist Raj Persaud has entitled one of the chapters in his book. It would helpful to see (in addition to SES) if there might be a correlation between a supportive social group, length of attendance, and the values of the group, and improved mental and social health, as well as other variables such as (say) personality type.

The paradox is that people who fear ‘messing up’ may actually be able to read social cues better than those who cannot, who march into a situation in ways that are totally inappropriate and lacking in sensitivity to the situation.

Indeed, this suggests that such people are both immature and have a mental health problem with reading appropriate behavior, by definition.

It may therefore be that there is an intrapsychic conflict involving conscience, and, by implication, a strong set of values in which ‘cognitive dissonance’ needs to be resolved.

The Antiguan ‘primitivist’ artist, Frank Walter (1926-2009) was clearly unable to resolve the dissonance between his upper-class, ‘white’ education, and his known slave ancestry. He maintained a ‘coping’ strategy by both a belief system that explained (to himself) how he could be both ‘white’ and yet appear physically ‘black’, and as he grew older, to retreat from all disconfirming evidence by removing himself from people, to the extent that he lived without either water or electricity at the end of his life. His story is a very sad and poignant one.

This suggests that social equality is an important factor in health pathologies. A more Freudian view of mental health pathology sees this as driven by intrapsychic conflict, and this was certainly the case of Frank Walter. He struggled with the conflicts over his identity all his life.

Mental health is arguably not best served by the ‘silent spaces’ of some supposed liberals, but by open recognition of the right of a special interest group to exist, provided it accepts the core values of the wider society, while drawing its main identity from within its own minority community.

‘Silent spaces’ (where no critical thinking is permitted, except what it itself decrees) reduce discussion, albeit painful, but which are a means to a new synthesis and ‘gestalt’ if worked through. Democratisation should not close down discussion (as is the habit of some post modernists) but open it up. (Next week: Tobe continued)